Trágico sainete, absurda fábula
by TotemundTabu
Summary: Because Romano was so innocent, pure like his sea. Romano was like his Naples: water and fire, a strange, perfectly unbalanced mix of two opposites, two souls. Time didn't change it, didn't change him. So that waiting, living centuries asking himself why and what if, Spain found himself hoping Romano would became a common, boring adult. But he was wrong, terribly wrong.


Ships: Spamano  
Title from: Poem XXXI, G. A. Bécquer , it means "Tragic farce, absurd fable"  
Dedicated to: Kat (if you like this "thing", if not, don't worry 3)  
Beta: RockBabi

**Trágico sainete, absurda fábula**

_I'm in love with a fairytale, even though it hurts._  
_'Cause I don't care if I lose my mind: I'm already cursed._  
- Fairytale, Alexander Rybak

"Sometimes, I am certain you are a masochist, _mon amì_." said France once.  
Or twice.  
Or a lot of times, Spain was not even sure.  
Anyway, he guessed France was not totally wrong.  
He was still in love with Romano after... centuries? Whoa, that was really pathetic, on second thought. Heavily pathetic.  
"Tell me, Spain."  
"Mh?"  
"Did you really think your foolish game could last forever?"  
"I always avoided thinking about it."  
France shook his head, both aghast and resigned.  
"You should have known."  
This is how it works: you can't love only one person in your life and you can't really expect the first love to be the last, right one, isn't it? You will trip at least once.  
If you are lucky, you will do it only several times.  
If you are really jinxed, you will trip only one time, but it would be the worst thing that ever happened to you.  
France sighed, "_Café au lait_?"  
"Two sugar lumps."  
"Yes, sir!"  
Spain's gaze was stuck like glue on the little wooden coffee table. Not that it was particullary interesting, it was a damn table and only France and Sweden were such furniture maniacs to actually stare at a coffee table, but- that was exactly the colour of Romano's hair.  
That dark, soft head of hair.  
That sweet hazelnut smell.  
...and the astonishing blush on his face, when Romano caught him red-handed.  
And all the nights, every damn beautiful night, when he had that shamefully fragile breath, breaking against the air, while whispering. A gasping Romano - he always thought - was his prerogative.  
He was convinced of that.  
He would have rather believed the earth did not move.  
Oh, yes, there was a time he was persuaded of the geocentric model... it was when Romano was little and cute - no, "cute" he never was - and belonged to him.  
But he was wrong.  
About the earth, and about Romano too.  
"Here,_ mon amì_." - said France, with his usual tone, so soft that it seemed like he was singing, constantly singing - "Why don't you just take a break?"  
"From him? As if it was possible..."  
France drew the cup closer to his mouth.  
"What about from all the lies? All this best-friend acting is exasperating." - he paused - "And, frankly, that sad face of yours is aesthetically a pain in the ass."  
"...thank you, France."  
"_De rien_."  
It was his last ditch effort.  
Oh, he wished he could.  
It was ridiculous trying again to lie to himself, saying "it's the last time", when he was trapped in a spiral, in a vicious circle.  
"You can't understand."  
"I am the country of Love!" - he punched him on the head - "Don't you dare say I can't understand."  
"It's not Love I'm talking about..." he hissed.  
France frowned, "So what?"  
"..._obsesiòn_."

He knew it was dishonest, almost bad.  
It all started when Romano was entering in puberty; before - he swore, he swore on his all people - he never thought about him, that way. Not a day. But.  
But.  
But the lazy August sunlight seemed to paint stars on the black, dark waves, the sand was like ivory dust and everywhere the wind was spreading a harmonious whistle.  
And everything Spain was seeing was _his_ olive, soft, skin, almost shining under the noon sun, after a refreshing swim in the Tyrrhenian Sea.  
His thin lips were a kid's no more.  
His whole body was no longer a kid's.  
He lay on his stomach. The legs were dangling with laziness and boredom, the fingers writing some words in the wet sand... even his dark eyes, lingering on the horizon, seemed languishing and lecherous. Romano always had that strong, persistent smell of coffee.  
With the left hand he was playing with his own lobe, without even noticing how Spain was staring at his bare, naked, neck. That angle, so sharp, and then how it melted into the shoulders and in the melodious back.  
He was sensual. Without even knowing.  
Which, to be honest, made him only more attractive.  
His voice was strangely low, maybe because of the hot weather.  
The Sicilian August was cruel.  
"Hey, Spain..."  
Romano's ankles were oscillating, backward and forward, like a lascivious pendulum between desire and desire.  
Well, Spain didn't felt like he had a lot of choices.  
"What?"  
Romano didn't look at him, "Would you prefer Veneziano?"  
Spain smiled. A sad, bitter, smile.  
"I can't think of something better than you."  
"Mh." , he replied.  
The sea was calm, but to Spain it seemed more like a sleeping monster; exactly like Romano's sexuality, because, even if the boy was still unaware of what his body was, clearly things wouldn't be that way for a long time.  
It was the lull before the storm: a trick, a mask - a farce.  
A foolish game was getting closer to starting everyday. Spain knew it, perfectly.  
And he also knew he had no intention of hanging back.  
"I mean it."  
"Don't fool me."  
Spain choked a laugh. There was not the slightest chance he would have been the one in control.  
Romano closed his eyes and, with a deep breath, sprawled on his left side.  
"Goodnight.", he mumbled.  
Spain frowned, "Do you want to sleep?"  
"It's too sultry to stay awake."  
Spain stood up, hands on his hips, forcing himself to look at the sea at not at the ridiculously scanty fabric that hid Romano's bottom.  
"Stay with me..."  
Romano was not looking at him, he spoke with the palm of his hand in front of the mouth, so that it was almost impossible to hear it clearly. But Spain managed to.  
That hoarse voice, that stubbornly shy pitch...  
He was in love with him, he knew.  
He was in love.  
"...just for a moment."  
Trapped.  
"However long you want, _Romanito_."  
However many hours he may need, however many centuries he may want.  
It was dangerous, almost masochistic.  
It was- shameful, wasn't it? Oh, what happened him? He was not like that, he was not like... that? Or was he? He never looked at Romano when he was a baby but couldn't stop feeling a sense of guilt, like he had.  
If Romano knew, if Romano figured it out, would he think that he always looked at him like that? With that intense feeling of-? Or was there a possibility that he too, maybe... No, that was impossible.  
Because Romano was so innocent, pure like his sea.  
Romano was like his Naples: water and fire, a strange, perfectly unbalanced mix of two opposites, two souls.  
Time didn't change it, didn't change him.  
So that waiting, living centuries asking himself why and what if, Spain found himself hoping Romano would became a common, boring adult. But he was wrong, terribly wrong.  
Nothing about him was boring.  
Some traits, though, were annoying. And he was sometimes a real pain in the ass.  
He was disobedient, naughty and stubborn.  
He was always screaming.  
But the only way he wished to shut him up was with his lips and, as that was not possible, somehow he found himself accepting all his screams and - curse words.  
So many times he'd felt so close to losing self-control.

France smiled, "Listen, why don't we ask Prussia to come here and have a nice drinking evening, like in the old times, when we were young boys?"  
"I don't feel like that, sorry."  
"Don't worry." - he ruffled his hair - "To go out with Gil may require a bit of phychological preparation."  
"...what about just the two of us?"  
"A good french wine?"  
"A robust one."

Sometimes, Romano came to his bed. It was rare, though.  
He has always been pretty different from Veneziano, who always tried to sleep with Austria or Hungary or even with Germany.  
Romano has always been quite... mistrustful.  
He liked girls, he liked to use pick-up lines but he also showed a strangely big shy side sometimes. It was like a deep fear of real contact. Like he was afraid of something going wrong.  
And Spain was not so different.  
He needed tons of rum to say those simple words, that night.  
It was still the pirate age, and he was drinking on the wooden table in one of his biggest sailers.  
"I want you."  
The wood of ship was full of the deep, aromatic smell of gun powder and spices. A deep warm dampness enshrouded the hold, while the silence impregnated the air, like a curse or something too big to handle.  
"You have me."  
Spain swallowed another glass of liquor. A small, slow, drop fell from the moutch, chasing the neck.  
"You didn't understand." he replied, with a sad shade of voice.  
His dark, long hair on the shoulders was still lightly wet and dirty with the sand of the new world beach they were on before. Romano was not able to turn away his eyes, he felt like he was falling into his thick blouse.  
Romano opened his mouth, not even meaning to.  
"I did."  
Spain cast a glance on him.  
His green eyes never seemed so heavy, so fraught.  
Romano was not able to discern the wrath from the desire nor either of them from the frightful power. That green was almost ghastly, almost cruel... surely, it was so killing sensual.  
"I did.", he repeated.  
Spain stood up from his wood chair, left the table with the rum bottle and the glass, then walked, stepping towards him, so that for a moment Romano backed off, unconsciously.  
He hit the wooden broadside, swallowing.  
What was he so afraid of?  
Getting what he wanted?  
When Spain stopped, so near to him, cornering him, he felt like somebody had torn his heart from his chest.  
Spain lowered his face, trying to catch the Italian lips.  
His clothes smelled strongly of mint and cinnamon.  
Spain took Romano's bottom lip in his mouth, tasting it infuriatingly, maddeningly slowly.  
Romano felt not only his heart, but also his lungs stop working, because air was impossible to reach and everything he had in his nostrils was that exasperating, beautiful, smell of spices.  
He attacked, encroached on Spain's fauces, moving his tounge in them.  
He was overwhelmed, but he wanted more.  
Spain bit his neck, sinking his teeth into Romano's flesh.  
He tasted like nothing he'd ever tasted before.  
He tasted like everything he ever wanted.  
Romano moaned with pleasure, with a dirty nuance of greed for more.  
More, more, more.  
Everytime more, every night more.  
The strong, unrelenting urge to eat the other.  
They were dominated by a hard, overwhelmingly foolish game that blurred their rationality. All they felt was that intoxicating sensation, like being alive for the very first time.  
Insatiable.

"_Voilà_!" said France, pouring Spain a dark, red Bordeuax wine.  
Spain almost pounced on the stem glass.  
"Hey, it's a Château Lafite Rothschild." - he said, like if it meant something to his friend - "Chill out and taste it. Gosh, you are worst than that British brat..."  
"Uh-oh." - Spain mocked - "Do you have sorrows to drink away, too?"  
"Not with a Château Lafite Rothschild!"  
"...you know, I always wondered how everything in French sounds like a sexual practice."  
France glared at him, "You spit when you talk."  
"It's not... " - another glare - " ...okay, maybe a bit."  
France mumbled something that Spain didn't understand.  
"Are you okay? About England, I mean."  
France gave a sad smile, "I am the country of Love, sometimes Love means 'let them go'."  
Spain frowned.  
"It does not seem something I will be able to do, eventually."  
"Well, you are the county of Passion, isn't it?" - he poured some more wine in Spain's glass and then whispered - "And Passion means 'I can't be sated with you.' ..."  
"...I guess so."

"Romano?"  
"Mh..."  
The young Italian boy openend his eyes, wearily, like the sunlight was actully hurting him. But the rays entering from the small porthole were gentle and kind, almost timid, they seemed to be knocking on their eyes.  
"It's morning..."  
It was late, but Spain had been awake since the crack of dawn, and he just stayed, mute, looking at Romano as much as he was able to. He was somehow scared this dream would burst.  
"...I'm tired, bastard, my ass hurts."  
"If you want, I can cuddle you."  
"Don't you dare." he hissed, turning on the other side.  
Spain smiled. He was so... limpid, like an open book to him.  
"Romano..."  
"Mh?"  
"I love you."  
"_Ti amo anch'io_."  
A pirate blushing is not a good calling card.  
He sank into the bed, holding him. Breathing him. Deeply.  
"What the hell do you...?"  
"You just said it in your language."  
Romano was the only thing he never ever wanted to lose.  
But he lost it anyway.  
Because it's the way History, their life, works.  
Spain never blamed Romano for that, because, to be honest, he knew it was the way things were supposed to end from the beginning. He was a nation, he was born to be one, so it was absurd to think he would just have been one dominion of his forever.  
And, in the end, all their love was absurd.  
An absurd fable.  
But is a man, even if a nation, able to put up a fight against a something so much bigger than him?  
France was right. He was the country of passion: all of his, from history to poetry was full, full with passion. But there were very few happy endings.  
And so, too, his absurd fable had to end.  
One day, one day after so many years, after so many centuries, he - swallowing his fears -came to him and said those words.  
Those sharp, sharp, sad words. Spain felt them piercing his soul.  
"I am going to unify with Veneziano."  
After so many years, just when Spain stopped waking up at dawn to watch him, just when he stopped being afraid...  
The bubble burst.  
He never felt like condemning him.  
Romano had to live his destiny, just- just- Spain didn't want his own destiny being to be separated from him.  
His Romano.  
"Take care of my _Romanito_."

At the end of the evening, the bottle of wine was sadly empty. Spain opened his eyes, touched his aching head and then his back; he had fallen asleep on the floor, while France was snoring on the sofa.  
Spain got up and looked at his wristwatch: 4:00 AM. Uh. Well, it was really time to go back home.  
He wrote two lines on a little sheet of paper to thank his friend and went out, in the dark French country. He was no longer afraid of the darkness; since the time he was a _conquistador_, he learnt that the darkness may be more friendly than the daylight... also, without Romano, even night seemed always a little too dark.  
When he arrived at Madrid, the sun was high in the sky, but he felt still a bit sad. Too many memories in his mind, too many things left unsaid that rose in his mind.  
Too many yesterdays to remember.  
He gave a sigh, while getting close to his little house.  
Only when he was near the door, he raised his eyes from the path and looked directly in front of him.  
"You're late."  
Wait.  
"Why are you here?"  
Wait.  
"That's not the way to say 'welcome', Spaniard." - he gave a peeved sigh, because apologizing was another thing he was not good at - "I had some thing to work on after unification but..."  
Why was he there?  
And was the sun shining so brightly before?  
Romano moved from the door jamp of Spain's house and came closer.  
"...I just thought you missed me."  
Again, those killer lips smiling at him. A proud grin, obviously, because Romano was too bashful to admit he was genuinely happy.  
But Spain always knew how to translate him.  
Because Romano was his own open book.  
"Well. " - he admitted -" I did."  
His absurd fable was not yet ended.  
He just had to turn to the next page.


End file.
